What if someone’s life is simply too much?

 What if someone’s life is simply too much?

I’ve been looking into EMDR therapists and have found someone who can work internationally. I don’t know if it will work well for me but I’m willing to try. My current talk therapist told me that EMDR can be used to treat PTSD, depression, anxiety, traumas, etc. ChatGPT tells me that there’s some preparation work to do and I also need to have a discovery call with the therapist I’ve found, so I started to dig into all the past traumas that I think could still have an impact on my anxiety, depression and resentment today.

1. Obviously domestic violence when I was growing up and also a few times when I didn’t quite follow my father’s instructions and the consequence that he was terrified of the most happened and yelled at me when I was a teenager. Those consequences weren’t such a big deal but because he had traumas associated with those and when my inattention resulted in the consequences he freaked out. This has led to me to believe that if I make one tiny mistake, a disaster could happen, especially if a behavior affects others or makes others angry. This causes lots of anxiety for me socially and also when I’m educating my kids’ social behaviors I panic a lot because I’m so afraid that their behavior could invite violence responses from others. 
2. I’m traveling on a cruise right now and sleeping in the same room as Angel and my kids. I paid for my parents for another room with my aunt. Tonight I just have this feeling that if my parents finally die one day, I probably won’t shed a tear because the feeling of relief would be much greater than the gratitude I have for what they’ve given me. At this point of my life I have given too much to them. To clean up their financial, emotional and logistical messes. They never do inner work, never grow, never change. I just don’t want it to be my job anymore. 3 days after we get off the cruise I’m actually doing another road trip with them and with my kids, without Angel. I wanted to do the road trip myself with the kids but my parents occasionally could be of some help with the kids, e.g. if I have to go to the ER then they can stay with the kids.
3. Because of my trauma with domestic violence as a child, I was motivated to move to the US just like Darren Hayes because what I saw in media was always happy families and eternal love in Hollywood. Oh that’s another thing I have in common with Darren Hayes—he had the same American dream like I did that eventually shattered so he moved to the UK. He found his first home away from home in the City of Gold as well. That drove me to learn perfect English, to fantasize white men to be my saviors. I wanted to be American so that my destiny could change as a result of my new identity. 
4. Lots of traumas and betrayals in the US and with American men. Let’s start from Jes. We obviously loved each other but he refused to acknowledge it and kept telling me how fucked up the situation was and that I had to make out with other men in my life. I did and moved on and fell for other men, and then got hurt again and again. A part of me and me for many years hated him for being so cowardly and just let me crash and burn on my own. Even when we were only 80 miles away from each other while I was depressed, he didn’t want to meet me because he couldn’t face the truth, the suffering I had in my life. 
5. There was Ivan when I was in the City of Extremity. He and I were together for a year but never had sex. He never tried to make it special for me because he was actually emotionally attached to another woman who he later married after we broke up. Non-committal men have traumatized me too many times which led me to marry Angel, because no one else wanted to commit to me. Angel committed to know because of what he knew about me on paper, even though he didn’t really understand me or feel me or empathize with me. It feels like, only men with emotional disability would perceive me as normal, lovable. If a man is not emotionally disabled like this, they’d be terrified by my emotions. I know this is a toxic thought but too many people have told me that I’m too much, including my own family. 
6. I used to believe that once I had kids I’d never be lonely again. However, Little N’s health conditions upon birth absolutely terrified me and gave me severe anxiety because I was so afraid he would need a heart surgery. The heart condition he had, if not healed on its own, would require a very complex surgery. I cried so hard so many times after he was born, and my first time being in an ambulance was when they transferred Little N to a medical center. I was always alone in these hospital visits, alone in my late night research, alone in my imagining of the worst case scenarios. Angel was always tired and had to sleep at 8pm every single day. He never intuitively held me once. Even when I told him my worries, he just couldn’t feel me and would dismiss my worries with meaningless things like, “it will be ok” with no expression on his face or he would just ignore me.
7. After Little N’s heart condition healed on its own, Little O was diagnosed of autism. All the problems related to schools, that he had to transfer 3 times to be in a kindergarten that accepted him, were handled entirely by myself. I was so devastated but I wasn’t allowed to be sad or devastated for a minute, because all I focused on was to solve the problems. Angel was absolutely useless in my meetings with the school principal and psychologist. I did all the talking and when I cried, Angel sobbed next to me but without tears. It was as if he didn’t know what to do so he just copied what I did. I had been utterly, truly abandoned in those situations by Angel. Because he absolutely didn’t have the capacity to deal with our challenges. I was hoping that his parents could offer me more emotional support in the process because Angel couldn’t, and they abandoned me too. They’re a whole family of emotionally shut down people and they’re not even aware of it. On top of that, they have judged me and been condescending about Little O’s disability. When I had a fleeting idea of getting Little O a 7-year-old birthday party at a play center with catered food, Angel’s parents’ response was, “Given who he is, what’s the point of it? Are you just trying to show off?” And they have engaged in many micro aggressions towards my ethnicity and socioeconomic background over the past decade. Those are my traumas too.
8. Little O and Little N’s behaviors in public have caused other people to blame me for their behaviors and we have been criticized countless times by strangers in public. These are ongoing traumas that might very well still happen in the future. In all these traumas, Angel was always spared because he looked different and didn’t speak the language and even when we were in his hometown, people still blamed me but not him, even though he was sitting right there. We’re looking at traumas that aren’t exactly just my kids’ behavior in public; it’s also my skin color and my gender. I have been suffering from micro-aggressions for decades but didn’t know that until recently. These aggressions were the most severe when I was with Angel’s family actually, rather than my time alone in the US, ironically.
   
   I have been through so much and I personally don’t know a single person who’s gone through as much as I have that can still have a happy ending. Maybe Darren Hayes? But he’s already 52 years old and he’s finally finding happiness when half of his life probably has already passed. Many people in my situation would have just given up and just keep living their life day after day without the intent to change, to be happier. They would tell themselves that this is the happiest, best life they can have. I used to think that way too until I decided that I’d be happier if I were alone. I wanted and still want freedom, whether there’s a man in my life or not. I have been telling Angel to just set me free for years but he never understood what I meant. He just told me that yes I could be free. It’s better to be alone than to be with someone who can’t feel you at all, who just can’t hold you when you need it the most.
   
   At this point of my life, I still have no one who can fully understand me, let alone be with me. I am typing this entry at a bar on the cruise at midnight, because I can only do so after the kids are asleep, with Angel.